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Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

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Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#161

Post by Bermion »

dymk wrote: post #78
Bermion wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to limit speed and the amount of interactions between cars and pedestrians. This will necessarily be at the expense of the drivers who will have to drive slower and get less space since they have historically been prioritized. It is much easier to implement the necessary measures (against the will of many drivers) if it is clear that drivers run over people, not that people accidentally end up under cars.

I agree that roads need lower speed-limits and to be made safer by their geometry. That's done by reporting on the unsafe conditions of the road. It does no good to play this game of rhetoric, reframing the matter so the driver is at fault (which is not always the case). A driver does not decide to not run over a person because they think a news story will be more accusatory of them.

Roads aren't badly designed because no one has "reported" them. Improving roads for pedestrians needs to be a priority for politicians, instead of convenient commuting by cars. And for that to happen, voters need to see the world like it is: drivers run over pedestrians.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#162

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lamontcg wrote: post #137
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing your behavior gives the cyclists and the road users around you (other cars, pedestrians looking for a spot to cross, etc, etc) the impression that you're a skittish or novice driver and are uncomfortable with the situation. This puts them on alert that you might do something unexpected (you are presumably a novice after all). This takes attention away from all the other things that demand their attention and…

> you are presumably a novice after all I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention. Trying to drive like a robot all the time is something that actual novice drivers think makes them better drivers.

>I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16.

My point is you look like a novice in the eyes of the other drivers because the only information they have is that you're having a harder time than everyone else passing the cyclist(s).

>You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention.

I agree

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#163

Post by bellyfullofbac »

smoldesu wrote: post #147
burnished wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its more the realization that you aren't safe, and that your safety is not only not a priority but somehow actively repugnant, all due to you being on a bike. If you are a kid driving isn't an option. If you don't feel safe on the roads as a pedestrian or bicyclist then your options are rather limited. This was my own experience, and if I had been less reckless I would have gotten less exercise. As it was, telling so…

Sounds like you should cycle in safer places then? Airline pilots don't complain because highways aren't a safe place for planes to be, and similarly it can be pretty dangerous to ride a bike in a place where cycling is an afterthought. Shifting the blame back to the drivers doesn't change that, if anything it tarnishes the reputation of cyclists even further. I get a similar feeling when I see people on Hacker News…

I think articles that highlight terrible driving would help the growth of the idea in drivers that maybe they need to take care more around bikers. If you're a driver and the articles seem to be blaming the bicycles, you won't change your behaviour. But if you read how a driver goofed up and hit a bicycle, maybe you'll pay more attention the next time your car is near one.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#164

Post by [deleted] »

Bermion wrote: post #76
dymk wrote: post #9

This is neat, but something bugs me about the framing of the intended goal versus how you propose to get there. If the intent is to raise public awareness and to put pressure on leadership to make roads generally safer, why do almost all the corrections follow a pattern of shifting blame from the individual pedestrian onto the individual driver? Many of the suggested fixes are just their own form of counterfactual -…

We need to limit speed and the amount of interactions between cars and pedestrians. This will necessarily be at the expense of the drivers who will have to drive slower and get less space since they have historically been prioritized. It is much easier to implement the necessary measures (against the will of many drivers) if it is clear that drivers run over people, not that people accidentally end up under cars.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#165

Post by scelerat »

yodelshady wrote: post #117

That's actually pretty amazing work. Being super preachy, as a cliched straight white etc etc... after riding a bike I sort of get complaints about -isms, emotionally, in a way I wouldn't without. Everyone has already concluded that you deserved it . Whatever happened. It does not matter if you were wearing hi-vis, or had a light, or were in a bike lane, or the nearest bike lane is 5 miles away and on the pavement fo…

Yes, I have experienced "blame the victim" as a cyclist as well..

Traveling down a well-lit street at night, lights on my bike front and back, approaching a four-way intersection, green for me, a car turning left across my path stopped its turn mid-intersection, yielding to my right-of-way allowing me to proceed. Meanwhile, the car behind it filled with drunken women goes around the yielding car to turn left... into me, on my bike. I was luckily agile enough to leap clear as my bike went clattering away beneath me. I was unhurt though, obviously, shaken.

The driver of the car that hit me came running over to the sidewalk where I sat down and started yelling at me for riding at night. And for not wearing a helmet. "You could have been killed!" she said. I am not making this up. Then she fled.

Division and Brannan street, SF, about 12 years ago.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#166

Post by wwweston »

yodelshady wrote: post #117

That's actually pretty amazing work. Being super preachy, as a cliched straight white etc etc... after riding a bike I sort of get complaints about -isms, emotionally, in a way I wouldn't without. Everyone has already concluded that you deserved it . Whatever happened. It does not matter if you were wearing hi-vis, or had a light, or were in a bike lane, or the nearest bike lane is 5 miles away and on the pavement fo…

It's also possibly for some of the same reasons: baseline expectations coalesce around some predominate experience (shared social experience / shared road experience) that becomes the default, to the point where it becomes difficult to imagine a different experience unless you've shared it, much less validate and address that experience.

I don't currently bike but once upon a time that was how I usually got around Los Angeles and boy was it eye-opening. And yet, as someone who's primarily been a motorist and pedestrian since, sometimes I catch myself forgetting.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#167

Post by cranky908canuck »

dymk wrote: post #9

This is neat, but something bugs me about the framing of the intended goal versus how you propose to get there. If the intent is to raise public awareness and to put pressure on leadership to make roads generally safer, why do almost all the corrections follow a pattern of shifting blame from the individual pedestrian onto the individual driver? Many of the suggested fixes are just their own form of counterfactual -…

Not sure if there's overshoot, but seems like it's trying to shift from:

A car hit a cyclist/pedestrian

to:

A person driving a car struck (with the car) a person who was [on a bicycle]/walking.

The issue is, "hit by a car" moves the focus away from what the person driving the car was/was not doing at the time.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#168

Post by chiefofgxbxl »

gault8121 wrote: post #87

This is an interesting tool! It would be cool if you could take say 20 articles from Gothamist, Streetsblog, NYT, NY Post, Pix11, etc. and see how they all ranked in this system. That could be a really interesting blog post. -- Which tools are you using for these NLP judgments? Are you using SpaCy at all? Are there any models you've built here, or is this all rules on top of an NLP model? I'm working on NLP models fo…

Thanks! Comparison between news outlets is on the radar, once I improve the tool based on feedback from this Show HN.

My backend uses spaCy (NER/NLP), textacy [1] for extracting subject-verb-object triples, and coreferee [2] for coreference resolution.

I did build a custom spaCy model for which I manually annotated over 700 crash-related news articles in Label Studio [3]. This custom model identifies counterfactuals, framing (e.g. thematic elements), and what's called CARLIKE, because vehicles can be referred to in so many ways (year-make-model, year-model, color model, generic terms like pickup/sedan/truck, nicknames like Chevy instead of Chevrolet, etc.

Coreference resolution was probably my favorite part of the NLP analyzer. For example: "A woman was injured after being struck by a vehicle. She was walking on Washington Street when the incident took place." Now we can identify "woman" as a pedestrian because "she" was walking. Implementing that coreference resolution felt magical, because now the tool can pick up so many more issues that it couldn't before when it only looked at individual sentences.

I'll be writing an in-depth article about my implementation and journey, and I'll be sure to shoot you an email to chat with you some time.

[1] https://github.com/chartbeat-labs/textacy

[2] https://github.com/msg-systems/coreferee

[3] https://labelstud.io/

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#169

Post by dymk »

trytophan wrote: post #143
dymk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then target leadership. They're the ones responsible for building better roads (which is the whole advertised purpose of this project!). Writing an NLP bot that rewords articles to blame the driver 100% of the time is nothing but an exercise in getting a nice revenge dopamine rush. But drivers aren't the ones building roads.

Leadership (politicians) respond to public sentiment and attitudes held by their constituents. They're not going to build safer streets, despite the benefits and means to do so, without the political will of citizens. Shifting the way the public perceives fatal car crashes would compel more people to bring up the issue with their local leaders and gather the momentum needed for such changes.

So shift focus towards how dangerous the streets are

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#170

Post by throwaway81523 »

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #124
yodelshady wrote: post #117

That's actually pretty amazing work. Being super preachy, as a cliched straight white etc etc... after riding a bike I sort of get complaints about -isms, emotionally, in a way I wouldn't without. Everyone has already concluded that you deserved it . Whatever happened. It does not matter if you were wearing hi-vis, or had a light, or were in a bike lane, or the nearest bike lane is 5 miles away and on the pavement fo…

I'd love to hear even one anecdote of 'kid believes bikers are unfairly blamed for accidents' -> 'kid decides never to exercise again in any form'

I'm sort of in that situation now, though not a kid. I biked around all the time as a kid and in college, but for some reason it's a lot scarier when I do it now, even in areas with not so much traffic. So I don't bike any more, and miss out on a lot of exercise. Weirdly, in the old days I never felt like I needed a rear view mirror when biking, but now I always worry about cars coming up behind me without my noticing. I don't know what has changed.
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